life, language, literature, history, technology, higher education

Main menu

Post navigation

Revised Questions: Oral Histories Regarding Braille

I am sincerely grateful for all of the feedback I received (in various channels) about my last post. Below I list the questions I ended up asking during the first three interviews I conducted. Keep in mind that the interviews were much more like conversations than this somewhat sterile list of questions might imply.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

What is your experience today with using braille in everyday life?

What do you remember about when you first started learning braille?

What was the hardest thing about learning braille?

Looking back now, what’s your opinion of the way you were taught braille?

Today, when you read for pleasure, what kind of material do you read and how do you read it? (audio? braille?)

Some say that listening to a book is not an example of literacy and that only by reading through braille is a person literate. What’s your opinion?

With new technologies making it so easy to listen to books and other kinds of writing, is there a good reason to preserve braille and keep teaching people how to use it?

Do braille readers have any advantages over sighted readers?

Let’s turn now from reading to writing. How do you compose your writing? What tools do you use? How do you edit? Do you use a brailler?

When you were a child, did you have any adult role models who were visually impaired or blind?

Do you think it’s important for young people who are visually impaired or blind to have adult role models who are, too?